


Playing the Odds

by laughter_now



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-11
Updated: 2012-07-11
Packaged: 2017-11-09 16:11:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/457415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughter_now/pseuds/laughter_now
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim has beatend the odds in his life and his career before, often enough to feel comfortable with the risks of being a Starfleet Captain. Only when the odds are staked against them this time, it's not his own life that's on the line. He is about to learn the true meaning of fear, and Jim doesn't know if he's ready to deal with that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing the Odds

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own anything associated with the Star Trek Franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Playing the Odds**  
  
One in a hundred thousand.  
  
Jim should have seen that something was wrong. He should have noticed, before it was too late. Then he wouldn't be sitting here, contemplating those odds in a feeble attempt to not go crazy over what was right in front of him.  
  
One in a hundred thousand.  
  
The odds seemed so absurd, it didn't even seem possible. It was always somebody else who was that one unlucky soul. He had beaten even worse odds so many times before, it was scary how quickly he had come to rely on them always turning to their favor. This time Jim shouldn't have gambled on them beating the odds, and he should have damn well done something against it before it was too late.  
  
But he hadn't, and now somebody else was paying the price for his own shortcomings. It was karmic payback for a lifetime of screw-ups, Jim was sure of that. But _he_ was supposed to pay for his mistakes, and not somebody else. Not a member of his crew, not a friend, and not…  
  
…not somebody he loved.  
  
Never that.  
  
One in a hundred thousand.  
  
One in a hundred thousand vaccinations didn't work.  
  
Jim remembered that number from a long ago conversation with Bones, yet another of the doctor's medical rants that he had been only half-listening to and which he had all but forgotten about it until all this had happened.  
  
He sighed and shifted carefully, trying to alleviate the pressure on his lower back and his numb left leg. He had long ago given up any attempt to try and find a comfortable position. There was none, especially not after days of doing nothing but sitting.  
  
One in a hundred thousand vaccinations didn't take effect and did not inoculate against the illness.  
  
And Jim hadn't noticed a damn thing.  
  
  
 _"Jim, there's an outbreak of Tellarian Fever in the Andorian settlement. We need to inoculate the entire crew before we beam anybody down to the planet."_  
  
  
He had only nodded and not thought about it any further. Immunizing the entire crew against an alien illness was nothing new or unusual, and Bones deemed the risk of infection as practically null with the vaccinations, and if they put some simple scans in place before beaming anything back up from the surface that could bring the infection up to Enterprise. Nothing stood in the way of beaming down to the Andorian settlement to help them repair their energy supply which had been damaged by a natural magnetic surge from the planet's core. And while they were already there, Bones and his team could provide help with treating the infectious outbreak.  
  
He hadn't been worried. He had put blind trust in their technical and scientific means and hadn't even worried for a second about the things that could go wrong.  
  
  
 _"Tellarian Fever, Bones? How bad are we talking?"  
"For an Andorian? A nasty illness, but treatable with the right medications, which we can synthesize."  
"And for a human?"  
"Pretty much lethal. That's why we're going to immunize everybody, no matter if they beam down to the planet or not. Don't want anybody on board to catch it because somebody brings it back up from the planet and our scans miss it."  
"All right then, make a schedule and have everyone come down to Sick Bay for their vaccination within the next six hours. We should reach the settlement in twenty hours, that enough time to make sure everyone's good to go?"  
"Sure, Jim."_  
  
  
One in a hundred thousand vaccinations against Tellarian Fever did not provide immunity.  
Everybody had gotten their shots. Jim remembered his own with painful clarity, and he had gone through the medical logs later on. Every single crew member of Enterprise had been vaccinated against Tellarian Fever long before the first away teams had beamed down.  
  
And for forty-six hours, everything had been fine.  
  
Scotty's teams had helped the Andorians with their repairs, which had turned out more complicated than anticipated. Bones and his team had brought down the necessary medications and had helped the Andorian healers treat the colonists who had fallen ill. Jim and Spock had met with the administrative leaders to deliver messages from Starfleet and Andoria and had set up a general timetable for their mission in the colony. Once that had been done, whenever they hadn't been needed up on the ship, they had both helped out wherever their expertise was needed.  
Spock had helped with the calculations needed to counter the planet's unexpected magnetic surges and stop them from further impairing the colony's energy supply. Jim had lent a helping hand wherever Scotty needed one.  
  
After twenty-four hours, Bones reported that all the Andorians who had fallen ill were responding to treatment.  
  
After thirty hours, Spock and Chekov had figured out a way to buffer the colony's energy relays against the magnetic surges.  
  
After thirty-six hours, Chekov had devised a way to actually use the surges to draw energy, and had started recalibrating the colony's generators for that purpose.  
  
After forty hours, all the sick Andorians were well on their way to recovery and Bones reported to Jim that he wanted to stay for another twelve hours to oversee the development of the two most critical cases.  
  
After forty-five hours, Jim and Spock held a meeting and agreed that they were going to break orbit within the next day.  
  
At forty-six hours, Bones collapsed.  
  
After that, all bets were off.  
  
  
Again, Jim shifted slightly, but there was simply no position he could move into that was comfortable. And he couldn't complain about a lack of comfort, anyway. It wasn't as if he was the one battling Tellarian Fever right now. Bones had definitely drawn the short straw in this whole story, and Jim had no right to complain about anything.  
  
  
 _"Chapel to Captain Kirk."  
"Kirk here."_  
  
He hadn't had a bad gut feeling, or any kind of premonition about the content of this conversation. Maybe he had been a little surprised that it was nurse Chapel who contacted him and not Bones, but not even that had been cause for concern. Bones was always busy.  
He hadn't known that within a few seconds, his whole life was going to be turned upside down.  
  
 _"Sir, it's Doctor McCoy. He…"_  
  
It was _then_ that he had known then that something had happened. Deep in his gut, Jim had known then, although he had no idea just how bad it really was.  
  
 _"What about him?"  
"He…about fifteen minutes ago, he collapsed, sir. I thought it might have been exhaustion, he barely took a break since we came here. But when I examined him, he was already running a fever, and his antibody count was through the roof."  
"What are you trying to say?"  
"Sir, Dr. McCoy contracted Tellarian Fever."  
_  
And just like that, nothing else had mattered anymore.  
  
  
One in a hundred thousand vaccinations didn't work.  
  
According to the medical logs, nurse Chapel had inoculated Bones eighteen hours before the medical team had beamed down to the planet. He should have been immune to the infection. But this time, Bones was the one unlucky soul who fell on the wrong side of the odds.  
  
Over the past days, Jim had replayed his last conversation with Bones over and over in his mind, searching for the clues he might have missed that would have told him Bones was falling ill. Jim had searched and searched, but not found anything definite. Bones had seemed exhausted, true enough, but that was nothing unusual in the middle of a crisis. And Bones hadn't mentioned feeling unwell. He had talked about the state of the sick Andorians, and about sending half of his staff back to the ship to give them some rest. But he hadn't said a single word about feeling ill.  
  
Still, Jim should have noticed something was wrong. It was his job to notice when something was wrong with his crew, and this wasn't just any random crewmember they were talking about. It was _Bones_ , the one person he knew better than anybody else. The one person who meant more to Jim than anybody else. He should have noticed Bones was ill. Maybe then there would have been enough time to do something.  
  
Jim had beamed down to the small hospital in the Andorian colony right after Chapel's call, but Bones had already been unconscious and running a fever. He hadn't woken up once since, not even when the medical team had beamed him back up to Enterprise where he had been put into a quarantined section in Sickbay.  
  
Spock had ordered every crew member to come for another blood test to make sure that nobody else's vaccination had failed, but Jim didn't care. Spock was capable to handle the situation and whatever had to be done next, and this time it took neither a discussion nor a fight about whether or not Jim was too emotionally compromised to resume command. Spock wordlessly took over without formal announcement, and if Jim had had any time to be more than marginally aware of this, he'd have been thankful.  
  
If. But in fact, Jim barely even noticed that Spock took over command, let alone acknowledged it. All he could think about was Bones.  
  
As it turned out, ' _pretty much lethal_ ' meant that Tellarian Fever was lethal in over ninety percent of cases when a human contracted it. If the infection was discovered during the first couple of hours, before it spread through the entire body and hit the major organs, it was treatable rather well with high dosages of the medication they had synthesized for the Andorians.  
  
The infection had been spreading through Bones' body for nearly two days before it was discovered. Jim was no doctor, but that didn't sound like an _early discovery_ to him. By the time the first symptoms manifested, the complete outbreak of the fever was unavoidable. And once that happened, the overall 10% survival rate was a very optimistic estimation.  
  
Jim knew all that because during those first three days at Bones' bedside, he had read up on every fact about the Tellarian Fever that had been available on the ship's database. And he had questioned Chapel whenever she came into the quarantined section to check on Bones' readings or administer medication.  
  
Which was why Jim hadn't been surprised when on the end of the third day, Bones breathing had gotten worse. He had known it would happen eventually. But that he hadn't been surprised didn't mean that Jim hadn't been scared out of his wits when a wet, rattling sound had started to accompany each of Bones' breaths. Over the course of the next couple of hours, his breathing had become more and more labored and weak, and all Jim had been able to do was sit beside Bones' biobed and watch it happen. He had never felt more helpless in his entire life than during these hours.  
  
During that night, Chapel had been raising the head of the biobed higher and higher, until Bones had ended up in a nearly sitting position, since lying down the accumulated fluid in his lungs would have suffocated him. It went unspoken, but Jim was aware that once Bones was no longer breathing on his own, it wouldn't be long before the infection took him entirely. And even if he kept on breathing, the prolonged high fever was an equally lethal threat.  
  
This sucker-punch of a realization had been the moment when Jim had abandoned his chair at Bones' bedside and had climbed on the bed behind the other man, leaning Bones' back against his chest.  
  
 _Damn it Jim, I'm a doctor, not a teddy bear.  
_  
Imagining Bones' grumpy retort was not a substitute for the real thing, not by a long shot. Jim could imagine how Bones would grumble and complain if Jim was ever to initiate this kind of physical contact in public while he was awake. There'd be all sorts of eye-rolls and name calling, grumpy yet at the same time secretly pleased and not all that well at hiding it from someone who knew him as well as Jim. But in the end the whole ' _not while we're on duty_ ' and ' _not in public_ ' and ' _damn it Jim, we're senior officers and not a peep show_ ' would win over.  
  
Right now, Jim was beyond caring. It wasn't as if they were making a secret out of what was between them, or ever had. By all medical accounts he was about to lose Bones, and that was more than enough to throw dignity and behavior becoming of an officer out of the window and just be close to him in the faint hope that the other man could feel it.  
  
Chapel and the other medical staff hadn't said a word about it when they had found Jim on the bed behind Bones. There was no medical reason to keep him away either, whether he was sitting beside the bed or on it. Jim was immune against the fever, and even if he hadn't been he would not have cared. This was Bones, and if Jim lost him, what happened to himself wouldn't matter, anyway.  
  
Once more Jim shifted slightly, leaning Bones' fever-ridden body more firmly against his chest. Bones' head was lolling limply against Jim's shoulder, and he didn't react to Jim's presence. He hadn't shown any reaction to anything ever since Jim had stormed into the Andorian Hospital.  
Jim sighed and pressed his forehead against Bones' too hot shoulder. He kept one hand lightly resting against the other man's ribcage, feeling the chest expand with every wetly gurgling, labored breath he took.  
  
Jim wasn't stupid. He could read the looks Chapel cast at him whenever she came into their small isolated bubble. He knew what she was thinking and didn't speak out loud – the _ifs_ , the unlikely odds, the medical facts. And Jim knew why these thoughts went unspoken. Chapel had been there the one time Spock had said _if_ instead of _when_ , and while Jim would never raise his hand against the nurse, he could see how his reaction to Spock's words had made her decide to keep her mouth shut. Ever since Spock's visit, nobody had dared to say _if_ , at least not while Jim was present.  
In fact, nobody was talking about anything concerning Bones' outlook at all. Jim wasn't stupid or deluded, but for as long as nobody mentioned it, he didn't have to contemplate it either. For now, denial was a safe place.  
  
As far as he was concerned, there was no _if_. Only _when_. Because Bones wasn't going to die. Jim didn't allow it, and he was the Captain. Nobody was allowed to go against the Captain's orders.  
  
Another weak breath expanded the sweat-slick chest under Jim's hand. Each breath was a relief, but also the start of the terrifying wait for the next one. The start of the gut-wrenching fear that there wouldn't be another breath. Bones' skin was so hot underneath Jim's hand, far too hot by any healthy standards. He was naked safe for the thin sheet that was covering him from the waist down, the biobed's thermal regulators were set low in an attempt to cool him down, and Chapel administered fever reducing medication as well as painkillers in an hourly rhythm. But the fever simply didn't break, and the pained expression didn't leave Bones' face. The front of Jim's shirt was soaked where Bones' sweaty back had been leaning against it for hours, his body was numb from the lack of movement, but all that didn't matter.  
  
What mattered was that Bones was dying literally under his hands and there was nothing Jim could do to stop it. Why was he the Captain if he couldn't even protect the man he loved? But then again he was used to fighting opponents he could see. Beating the invisible ones had always been Bones' forte, anyway.  
  
Bones' breaths were getting weaker and fewer and farther apart, but Jim refused to acknowledge those signs for what they were. He heard the swish of the doors to the isolated quarantine unit and knew that it was Chapel who had come for her regular check-up. Her hourly visits were the only break in the monotony, and the only human interaction Jim felt comfortable with right now. Not that they chatted, but she always a small smile or a few quick words reserved for him that let Jim know he wasn't the only one who was still hoping for a miracle.  
  
This time, Chapel didn't say anything for a long while. The tricorder beeped as she took detailed readings, but instead of the usual hypospray to Bones' neck and an attempt to talk Jim into going back to his quarters and get some rest, the beeping of the tricorder continued for much longer than normal.  
  
"Captain…"  
  
There was something in her voice that made Jim's blood run cold.  
  
Bones' chest heaved for another weak breath, but the expansion stopped halfway through as if the effort was simply too much.  
  
"Captain, I have to ask you to leave."  
  
And finally, Jim looked up from where he had his face pressed against Bones' neck. Chapel was standing beside the bed, the tricorder no longer in sight. She wasn't even looking at Jim, she was busy sorting through an array of hyposprays on the table beside Bones' biobed.  
  
"What…"  
  
Bones' body had been slack and unmoving in Jim's arms for the past hours, shaking only with the occasional tremor or muscle twitch, but suddenly he went entirely limp against Jim. At the same time, the alarm on the monitors above Bones' bed started to ring shrilly through the room.  
  
It took Jim the fragment of a second to realize what had set off the alarms – Bones was no longer breathing. The chest underneath his hand was no longer expanding weakly with his labored attempts to draw the necessary oxygen into his lungs. Bones wasn't breathing.  
  
"Captain, you need to leave now." Chapel instructed, and all the previous sympathy for Jim and his emotional state was gone from her voice. She held Bones upright by the shoulders so that Jim could slip out from behind him, and in a few well-practiced moves had laid her patient flat on the bed.  
  
"I need M'Benga in here," Chapel said into the communicator as she injected something into the side of Bones' neck. "And take the Captain out."  
  
A hand clasped around his upper arm, and Kirk felt himself being led away from Bones' bed, though he could for the life of him not say who was guiding him out of the isolation unit and then out Sickbay's doors. He hadn't even noticed anybody else coming into the room. He only fully realized what had happened as the automated doors slid shut behind him and he found himself in the empty corridor outside the medical bay with no idea what was happening to Bones.  
  
Jim stumbled back until his back hit the corridor wall. His whole body ached, his strength was fading, and his mind was shutting down as the severity of what had just happened crashed down upon him. Before he knew it Jim found himself sliding down the wall until he was crouching on the floor, head buried in his arms.  
  
He wasn't ready for this. Losing Bones wasn't something he'd ever be ready for. Bones wasn't just the damn best doctor he could have ever wanted for his ship. He was the best friend Jim had ever had, something that had never changed, no matter that the very nature of their relationship had changed over the last years. But lover or not, Bones had always been first and foremost the best friend Jim had ever had. Bones was his confidant, the one person Jim could rest with, the one he didn't have to pretend anything with. So call him a fucking sap, but Bones was his damn other half and Jim wasn't ready to let him go. Anytime.  
  
Only, now it was out of his hands. Whether Bones lived or not was now up to Enterprise's medical team, and up to Bones' will to live and his body's capacity to fight the infection.  
  
Jim could not do a single thing but stand here and wait for the moment when somebody was going to come out of these doors and either crush his soul or grant him another few hours of desperate hope.  
  
Jim didn't think he had ever been really afraid. There had been moments when he had been scared, of course. He was reckless and daring, but he wasn't suicidal. A phaser to his head, some idiot alien shooting at his ship, racing towards the edge of a cliff, space jumping towards an exploding planet – of course those things scared him. But it was the kind of scare that came with adrenaline running through his veins, with hyper-awareness and the thrill of feeling alive.  
  
Jim had been scared like that often before. But even during those moments when his own life had been on the line Jim had never felt really, truly afraid.  
  
Not until the moment he sat there with Bones' limp and fever-ridden body in his arms, when nothing else had registered but the fact that Bones had stopped breathing. The moment Leonard McCoy had stopped drawing breath and those shrill alarms had sounded through the room, Jim had learned what fear felt like. Absolute, terrifying fear so bone-deep that it clenched his chest and took his breath away worse than space-jumping without the protection of a mask and suit.  
  
This was free-falling, the ground was racing up to meet him, and Jim knew that nothing would be able to put him back together after this impact.  
  
For the first time in his life, James T. Kirk was truly afraid.  
  
And it shouldn't be such a surprising revelation that for all the times his own life had been on the line already, he only felt truly afraid of losing somebody he didn't want to, no _couldn't_ , live without. This didn't compare to a phaser to his head. This was a knife straight through his heart.  
  
At that moment, Jim learned fear. And he learned that it wasn't the scare of his own life being in danger. It was the fear of living on to see another day, but with a vital part of himself missing, and the things he'd never get to see and feel again.  
  
Bones in the morning, in those half-awake moments right after the alarm sounded, hair sticking up all over the place. The feeling of Bones' arm tightening over Jim's waist for _'just five more minutes, damn it'_.  
  
His sure hold whenever Jim had once more jumped into something without thinking first, after another away mission gone bad or a diplomatic talk turned sour after which Jim had been too banged up stay on his feet on his own, relying blindly and without hesitation on Bones to bring him home and patch him up. And Bones always did. He always brought him home, he always put him back together. He always grounded him in this crazy universe, simply by being there.  
  
Bones face in the half-dark, face flushed and pupils dilated as he moved above Jim and inside Jim and made it feel as if they were shifting the whole damn universe along with their movement.  
  
The thought of never again having that and all those other uncountable small things that made his life worth living was a fear he had never known, and it made the breath catch in his throat.  
It was the fear of going on with the knowledge of a life unlived, and too many things left unsaid. _I love you_ being on top of that particular list, because no matter how often it was paraphrased and said in different ways to avoid the actual words, in the end all that counted was that it had been said with no room left for any doubt or interpretation.  
  
If that was what the rest of his life without Bones was going to feel like, Jim realized that there would be no more reason for him to dodge the next phaser shot, to bring himself to safety before things went to hell around him, or to pull his chute before he slammed into the jagged surface that was rushing up to meet him. His life was behind those Sickbay doors, and right now it was slipping away from him.  
  
The sound of boots echoing on the corridor, coming straight towards him, made him raise his head from the cover of his arms briefly. But he had already known that it was Spock coming towards him, face impassive as always, the only difference to any other day being the bright green and yellow-blooming bruise over his left cheekbone, the reminder of what happened if you said _if_ when you should be saying _when_.  
  
Chapel or somebody else in Sickbay must have alerted Spock to Bones' deteriorating condition, although for what purpose Jim had no idea. It wasn't as if the Vulcan was known for his comforting skills. Spock acknowledged Jim with a nod of his head, then he came to a stop beside him, arms crossed behind his back, waiting silently.  
  
Jim could live with silently.  
  
Apparently, Spock could too, because he didn't try to initiate any kind of conversation while they stood there and waited for somebody to come out and give them whatever news were to be had. But still, it took an endlessly long time before the swish of the automated doors told Jim that whatever had happened was over now. The die had been cast, and it was completely irrational that Jim thought if he only kept here in his crouched position, his eyes buried in his arms, he wouldn't have to face it. It was illogical.  
  
And really, Spock had to be influencing his thoughts telepathically or something, because Jim didn't think in those terms, ever. Even if his inner Spock was right – pushing this off wasn't going to change anything about what the news was going to be.  
  
Jim drew a deep breath and looked up at Chapel, trying to gauge from her expression whether it was bad news or even worse news, and it scared him that he couldn't.  
  
It wasn't easy to deduce anything from Chapel's words, either. Jim was listening, but his brain was frozen in fear of hearing the words ' _dead_ ' or ' _I'm sorry_ ' or ' _too severe_ '. Those words didn't come, but the fear of hearing them was so big that it took him a moment to hear the words Chapel actually said.  
  
And while the words ' _coma_ ' and ' _artificial respiration_ ' weren't comforting or hopeful, Jim also heard ' _he's fighting hard_ '. And he wanted to say that damn yeah, of course he was fighting, because he was Bones and wasn't allowed to die without Jim's consent. He definitely would have said it if he still had some measure of control over his voice.  
  
Chapel stopped speaking, and Jim took that as his cue to take up his vigil at Bones' bedside again, even though he was still scared to death and he had no idea how to deal with that newfound feeling. Jim was scared as hell about confronting the fact that Bones was no longer breathing. Just the thought about it sent his stomach in a terrifying free-fall, Jim didn't really want to see it with his own eyes. He had always considered himself strong, but he wasn't sure all the strength in the world was going to be enough to face the fact that the man he loved was slowly slipping away, and there was not a damn thing he could do about it.  
  
But Jim had lived pure horror for the past days already. He was ready to face this, too, as long as it meant he got to stay with Bones, where he belonged. Chapel immediately took a step to the side, blocking his path to the double doors.  
  
"What…"  
  
"Captain, you have to get some rest. Doctor McCoy is as stable as he's going to get, and for now the medication is keeping him that way. You haven't slept properly in days, and I have to insist that you get some rest now."  
  
Jim was just going to brush past her. He was the Captain, and he'd be damned if a nurse, no matter how competent she was, was going to give him the order to stay away from Bones. Chapel was only doing her job, Jim knew that, but right now she was keeping him from being with Bones, and that meant rational thinking was off the agenda. He could always apologize later, but there was simply no way she was going to keep him from Bones' side right now.  
  
He wasn't going to sleep, anyway. There was no way he would be able to sleep alone in their quarters, in the too-big and too-empty bed without the reassuring sound of Bones' breathing beside him and the feel of his arms around him.  
  
No. His place was with Bones right now. He could sleep when all this was over and…when Bones was all right again. There was no alternative.  
  
Jim shook his head and made move to step past the nurse when suddenly he felt more than heard or saw Spock's presence move closer to him, coming up at his back. There was the sudden feeling of fingers closing around his shoulder, at the juncture where shoulder meets neck. For a second, Jim thought that his First Officer was trying to restrain him and hold him back, but then those fingers tightened around muscles and nerves. The last thing Jim was consciously aware of was a sharp pinch of pain, then everything turned dark.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Growing up, Jim had faced a number of problems with teachers and other authority figures. One of the recurring complaints had been about his unwillingness to learn. And no matter that so many of his teachers seemed to agree on that point, Jim had known that those complaints were based on an entirely wrong assumption. He wasn't unwilling to learn, not at all. It was simply that James T. Kirk had always had very strong notions about what was _worth_ learning and what not.  
  
He had always been intelligent. Highly intelligent, some had called it. Gifted, had been the term of others, and some had even called him a genius. Jim didn't know which of those was more apt to describe him, and he had never really cared about it.  
  
The fact was that he had always been intelligent enough to learn those things that were expected of him, in school, and later at the academy, without having to put much effort into it. He had simply never seen the need to put an effort into learning things just because some teacher or curriculum said it was something he had to know.  
  
But truth was that Jim loved to learn. He soaked up knowledge with everything he did and experienced, and that was the kind of knowledge Jim valued and strived for. It were things he knew how to apply in life.  
  
It were things he never forgot again.  
  
In the hours and days after his world turned dark, Jim learned a whole lot of new things which he was never, never ever going to forget again for as long as he lived.  
  
 _A Vulcan nerve pinch was enough to put a human out for about an hour on average.  
_  
However, an exhausted body that had been deprived of proper sleep for days will take such a nerve pinch as a kick-start and incentive for catching up on another seven hours of sleep.  
  
And not even a Vulcan nerve pinch was enough to stop the nightmares that followed, or the feeling of waking up disoriented, with his heart beating frantically inside his chest, not knowing where he was or what had happened, but convinced with every fiber of his being that something vital was wrong with the world he was waking up to.  
  
 _His sneaky and backstabbing (or rather, neck-pinching) First Officer was clever._  
  
At least clever enough not to be anywhere in Jim's vicinity when the Captain woke up after that nerve pinch had knocked him out for far longer than he had ever wanted to leave Bones' side.  
  
 _Seeing Bones completely still and lifeless, breathing only because of the biosensors on his chest and temples as well as the computer those were hooked up to, was the second most frightening thing Jim had ever seen._  
  
The only thing worse had been when Bones hadn't been breathing at all. A world without a living, breathing Leonard McCoy in it was a thought that scared Jim more than anything had ever done in his life. It wasn't a world he was ready to live in, not an alternative he was ever willing to accept.  
  
And not even when Jim sat down beside Bones' bed and picked up his hand again was the contact enough to calm him. Not with Bones' skin too hot underneath his hand, the fever still raging through the other man's body, killing him slowly from the inside.  
  
 _Tellarian Fever was a bitch on the human body._  
  
Suffering from it was painful, exhausting, and lethal in far too many cases. The only thought that provided some measure of relief to Jim was that Bones was unconscious, and hopefully didn't feel most of the discomfort and pain.  
  
But it was equally bad to watch someone you love suffer through the fever. More than once Jim thought he couldn't stand it anymore, wanted nothing more than to scream out his frustration and run away. If he didn't have to see it, if he didn't have to suffer along with Bones, then he could pretend that it wasn't really happening. Then he would be safe.  
  
But all Jim ever did was grip Bones' hand more tightly. He couldn't have left, no matter how much he wanted to. This was where he had to be. His own feelings, fears and worry didn't matter right now.  
  
Only Bones did. All that ever mattered was Bones.  
  
 _Bones was the strongest and most stubborn son of a bitch Jim had ever met in his life.  
_  
Two days after he had been put on artificial respiration, he started breathing on his own again.  
  
It was ironic how much it scared Jim when all the monitors around Bones' bed suddenly started beeping and ringing in alarm as he weakly struggled to breathe against the artificial breaths administered by the ship's computer. That Bones was breathing was a good thing, but the scare it gave Jim was nearly as bad as the one he had gotten when the man he loved had stopped breathing.  
  
That Bones was breathing again was a big step, yet at the same time small in comparison to the obstacles that still stood before them.  
  
The fever was still raging through Bones' body, continuously rising and falling over the course of the next days, always lingering on that dangerous brink of how much the Doctor's body could handle. Bones didn't regain consciousness, although after the fourth day Chapel started talking about ' _unconsciousness_ ' instead of ' _coma_ '. Jim didn't dare to hope yet, but he stopped despairing for now. He figured that was another small step. But it was a step and that was all that counted.  
  
 _He probably had the best crew in the entire Federation._  
  
A Captain who simply abandoned his post without official announcement or reason was something that would have led to talking and whispers, in some cases even outrage or an official complaint on most other ships in the fleet. It didn't cause so much as a stir on Enterprise.  
  
Jim never made any official move to temporarily step down. He simply stayed with Bones, Spock stepped in for him and took over command, and the crew picked up the slack. Readily, and without a single complaint. More so, all his senior staff dropped by in Sickbay at one point or another to assure him, each in their own way, that his place was with Bones now and not on the bridge, and that they'd let him know if his presence was required. And by some silent agreement, one member of his senior staff always 'just happened' to be present in sickbay during those short periods when Jim left for a shower, a quick meal, or the short periods of rest Chapel and M'Benga made him take by threat of calling in Spock again.  
  
It was silent support, and a sign of loyalty which Jim would have never expected to be this strong, or come without any strings attached.  
  
He'd write them all up for a recommendation as soon as things were back to normal. The entire crew, each and every one of them.  
  
 _Bones eyes looked more green than hazel in the artificial light of Sickbay._  
  
And though it was only a flash, a few seconds of a half-lidded and fever-glazed stare in his direction, it was the best thing Jim had seen in a long time, if ever. He had been waiting to see those eyes again for far too long, secretly worried that he'd never get to. So it didn't matter for how long Bones was able to keep his eyes open. The main thing was that he opened his eyes in the first place, and that he looked at Jim for those few precious heartbeats before his gaze softened and his eyes slid close again.  
  
Jim's own eyes dropped close as if connected to Bones' by some invisible bond, and with his free hand, the one that wasn't occupied with pressing a fever-warm palm against his own, he pinched the bridge of his nose against the sudden pressure building up in his eyes. But it was as if his body was no longer under his command, and Jim felt it all spill over even as his shoulders shook with the first sob.  
  
He didn't understand it. Didn't understand why it was happening _now_ , when things were looking as if they might turn out all right again for the first time after so many days of everything being so wrong. But he had been too wired and tense, running on adrenaline, fear and sheer stubbornness for too long, and it all needed to break out. There was nobody else around, that was the only reason why Jim didn't fight harder against the breakdown than he did. He'd have never let his control slip like that if an audience had been present, and even now he only allowed his feelings to take over for a few short moments. And when his breathing finally settled and he felt his composure slide back under his control, Jim felt better than he had in what seemed like an entirely too long time.  
  
Nowhere in the near vicinity of good yet, but better. Another small step.  
  
Jim hadn't been the one on artificial respiration for the better part of two days, but after seeing Bones' eyes open it felt like he could finally breathe again.  
  
He remained sitting beside the biobed for a little while longer, until the turmoil of emotions inside of him had finally calmed down. It was still hard, tearing himself away from Bones' bedside. But now that Jim had seen him open his eyes, that gut-clenching fear that had held him in its grip over the past days had abated somewhat. At least enough to make room for the return of rational thought. Jim knew he was exhausted, and that he had pushed his body to the limit of what it was willing to take.  
  
As hard as it was, Jim finally let go of Bones' hand, not without squeezing it tightly one more time, and got up from the chair he had been sitting on for most of the past days. On his way out, he stopped by Chapel's desk to let the nurse know that Bones had woken up, then he left Sickbay and went to his quarters.  
  
The bed still was much too big and empty, the room was too silent without the sound of Bones breathing – and occasionally snoring – beside him, and it was too cold and lonely without another body wrapped around his own. But Jim was so exhausted that he was asleep only moments after he turned off the lights.  
  
That night, Jim dreamt disjointed dreams in which he walked through endless corridors, searching for Bones. He was chasing after that blue uniform in the distance, after that voice calling out for him from around another bend in the corridor. No matter how many walls appeared between them, Jim kept on searching, and the thought of giving up never crossed his mind. And in the end he found Bones, because he always did. He always would. He'd keep searching for Bones until he found him, no matter where or when.  
  
When the alarm tore Jim out of his dream, the warmth of a pair of arms wrapped around him lingered. Not long enough to make him forget what had happened, but for the first time in what felt like far too long he didn't wake with the feeling that something horrible had happened while he had wasted time sleeping.

  
It took more than a day for Bones to wake up to something like coherency. At first it were only short moments of feverish awareness, a few tired blinks in between periods of exhausted sleep. Jim was eternally grateful for every moment that Bones opened his eyes, but the real relief only came when the fever finally dropped to a level that was no longer dangerous, and he became coherent enough to hold a conversation, though his voice was still raspy, and all that was keeping him upright was the raised back of the biobed.  
  
But Bones was awake again, and that was the main thing, the one thing Jim had been hoping and waiting for ever since this nightmare began. Jim was there the entire time, grateful for each small sign of progress, but only when Bones was awake and responding was Jim able to relax. It was important, because during his day-long vigil at Bones' bedside Jim had thought of an entire list of things he needed to tell the other man. And it was essential that Bones was awake enough to hear them, and even more importantly, that he would remember.  
  
But now that he was sitting beside Bones' bed, Jim found that it was hard to remember all those things when all it seemed he could do was watch those hazel eyes look back at him, tired but aware, and seemingly content to just lie in his bed and look at Jim for as long as he was able to stay awake.  
  
"I love you," Jim murmured, because while he didn't remember much, he clearly recalled that this had been on top of the list of things he needed to tell Bones. The other man frowned slightly before he answered, his voice still raspy from disuse.  
  
"That bad, huh?"  
  
But he patted Jim's hand as he said it, which was enough to let Jim know that Bones had heard the words, and understood how much Jim needed to say them.  
  
"You have no idea." Jim didn't like how shaky his voice suddenly sounded. "You nearly died, Bones. You stopped breathing."  
  
Bones didn't know yet that Jim had been there when it happened, that he had held him in his arms when his body had gone slack and he had stopped breathing. He would get to know, eventually. Jim had no doubt about that. But for now, the only important thing was that Bones knew that Jim couldn't lose him.  
  
Bones tried to smile at Jim, even though it was obvious that staying awake was exhausting him.  
  
"I'm not going anywhere, Jim."  
  
A laugh that sounded suspiciously like a sob forced its way out of his throat.  
  
"You'd better not. Because even if you try, I'll just follow you."  
  
Bones smiled, tiredly but with a tenderness that was so rare and meaningful, it made Jim's heart ache.  
  
As Bones' eyes finally dropped close and he drifted off to sleep again, he reached for Jim's hand and squeezed it tightly, as if he needed to hold on to something before he allowed himself to let sleep take over.  
  
"I love you too, Jim."  
  
And as Bones' hand went slack in his grip and his breathing evened out into the deep and healthy breaths of recuperating sleep, Jim thought that in the end, that was all that mattered. With that on their side, they could go against all odds.  
  
  
 **The End**

**Author's Note:**

> This was intended as the +1 in a Five Times fic about Jim not knowing the true meaning of fear. I never got around to writing the other five times, so I turned this into a standalone story.


End file.
